De Vermeers van Van Meegeren

Kennerschap en de techniek van het vervalsen

In 1937 the Supper at Emmaus was discovered in France. All the experts agreed that the painting was a masterpiece by the seventeenth-century artist Johannes Vermeer. The painting was considered to be as important as Rembrandt's Night Watch. By acting quickly Museum Boymans was able to snap it up from under the noses of other interested parties for a record sum. Eight years later, there were astounded reactions when Han van Meegeren announced that he had painted the work. It then emerged that he had been responsible for a number of other ‘Vermeers' and ‘Pieter de Hoochs', which had meanwhile been bought by a number of Rotterdam collectors, the Rijksmuseum and Hermann Goering. This Boijmans Study reconstructs the notorious story of the forgeries and tries to discover how the entire art-historical world could have been so misled.